A public interest legal group is asking the Inspector General of the Department of Justice Tuesday to investigate the relationship between FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and political donations from one of the closest members of Hillary Clinton’s political family.

Cause of Action Institute Vice President John J. Vecchione says there is a potential for a severe conflict of interest based on a report in the Wall Street Journal that a political action committee controlled by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and the commonwealth’s Democratic Party contributed $675,000 to the state senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, the wife of the deputy director and the man in charge of agents investigating Clinton’s handling of classified information and the governor.

Vecchione also said COAI filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI related to the McAuliffe-FBI connection.

In its FOIA request to the FBI, the institute seeks all communications surrounding the deputy director’s role in the Clinton and McAuliffe investigations, as well the role McAuliffe’s campaign contributions to McCabe’s wife may have played in those investigations, he said.

McAuliffe also met with Dr. McCabe to urge her to run for office as a Democrat on March 7, 2015, just five days after The New York Times broke the story on former Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email system.

“Governor McAuliffe directed significant campaign contributions to an FBI official’s wife during active FBI investigations into both Governor McAuliffe and former Secretary of State Clinton,” Vecchione said.

“Just a few months after those contributions were made, the FBI official apparently played a role in the decision not to recommend prosecution of Secretary Clinton, and he may be in a similar influential position with respect to the ongoing McAuliffe investigation,” he said. “Regardless of whether any illegal or unethical conduct occurred, the campaign contributions at the very least raise serious questions about conflicts of interest and the propriety of Deputy Director McCabe’s involvement in and influence on those investigations.”

The investigation into former Secretary Clinton’s private email system began in July 2015, he said.

At the time, McCabe supervised the Washington field office of the FBI, which provided personnel and resources to the Clinton email investigation.

Cause of Action Institute is a Washington-based group that focuses on abuse of power by the Executive Branch using investigative, legal and communications tools to educate the public on how government transparency and accountability protects economic opportunity for American taxpayers.